The eyewear label’s founder, Lorena Serrano has created a unique process for the production of frames in Finnish birch wood in her home city of Madrid – developed from the ground up – through boundless persistence, passion and genuine innovation. On a special tour arranged after Silmo, Eyestylist visited the workshop and studios set up from scratch by Lorena and her team who, through the last 8 years have developed and perfected a system for making creative made-to-order sustainable frames, now sold across the world…
Eyestylist visited Nina Mûr with Kayla Heersink, @opticali_style, Kyla Skinner of Specs by Kyla in Atascadero, California, and Ana Sedes, CEO of Pinkadillac, the business development and strategic consultancy for independent eyewear.
The tour of Nina Mûr began with delicious ‘chocolate and churros’ – a Spanish speciality, and an introduction to the process of making the frames at the label’s busy studios, where the team has grown significantly since our last visit here in 2024. Nina Mûr works with just two “outside” collaborators, one, an architectural practice who have developed the cutting technique for the birchwood pieces with Lorena, and a second workshop responsible for the varnishing stage. Everything else takes place on site in the two-storey studios in Bellas Vistas barrio of Madrid. Above: Lorena Serrano, founder
Lorena described how, in 2013, they spent much time on the creation of prototypes, often giving up evenings after her day job to test different types of wood for the particular properties needed for the frames. “We really did start from scratch, working with a lot of prototypes in different woods, different resins, different curvatures…it was a lot of development…”. Working initially out of an appartment in which the bathroom was ‘converted’ for production, orders grew exponentially and a new location was soon required.
Today, more than 10 team members are working at the studios in Madrid, and an area downstairs has been equipped in the last two years with a variety of specialised machines needed to facilitate different stages of the process including the creation of the curved plywood sheets, lens edging and finishing. An abrasive blasting cabinet is used for specialist surface preparation and finishing. According to Lorena, around 85% of each frame is made by hand – requiring around 80 steps…”When an order is placed, a very precise system is now operational for the production of the frames,” explained Lorena. This system has been developed through the years to make it as efficient and precise as possible. “It is really really complex,” she told us. “It’s the things that you cannot see that are so important to the process…”
Some of the most detailed work by hand takes place in the studio. Frames created in collaborations such as those with Okuda San Miguel have very very small parts – in this case tiny spikes – which must be added with real precision by hand. The frames in the clay collection featured tiny multicoloured clay pieces that were laid flat on to the wood surface by hand in an artistic formation, another task that could only be done by craftspeople and individuals with a real sensitivity to the creative process of the brand and time it takes to make a frame in this way.”
We visited the architect’s studio near the main studios of Nina Mûr where a small workshop is set up especially for this precision cutting work. The frames are cut using CNC (computer numerical control) and a specially developed software to “add three-dimensionality and guarantee precision, quality and comfort.” Cutting is organised according to the colours and whatever is a priority at the time.
Wearing a pair of Nina Mûr glasses means wearing something that has been uniquely made for you through a sustainable and exacting process – in Madrid. It is rare to see so many precise stages involved in the creation of individual pieces in any eyewear material, and this innovative sustainable approach to working with plywood, combining technical precision with a signature creative freedom and commitment to slow craftsmanship and hand-finishing, is a completely awe-inspiring achievement in the production of creative, sustainable eyewear design.
Find out more about the brand at www.ninamur.com
See the latest collaboration collection with Okuda San Miguel: www.eyestylist.com/2026/06/artist-collaboration-okuda-x-nina-mur/